Useful tips on how to properly preserve beets at home for the winter
Beetroot is an indispensable product for dietary and therapeutic nutrition. And in the everyday menu, the sweet root vegetable is actively used in raw, baked and boiled form.
Beets, after harvesting in the fall, can retain their beneficial qualities for more than 9 months.
How to properly preserve beets for the winter at home, read the article.
Content
Preparation for storage
When harvesting beets from your own garden or buying them at the market, you must remember that not all root vegetables are suitable for long-term storage. The shelf life of a vegetable is affected by its size, maturity and integrity of the peel.
Portrait of an ideal root vegetable for storage:
- The diameter of a round root crop is 8-12 cm, cylindrical – 4-5 cm.
- There are no cuts, signs of rotting, or dents on the skin.
- There are no signs of freezing.
- The root is preserved to a length of 4-6 cm, its cut is dried.
- The tops are cut flush with the root crop, but without damaging it.
Late beet varieties, ready for harvest 110-120 days after sowing, are stored better: Bordeaux, Detroit, Bravo, Krasny Shar, Podzimnyaya, Ploskaya Gribovskaya.
How and where to store it in the apartment?
Ideal storage options table beets, allowing you to protect them from spoilage for more than 8 months:
- constant air temperature from +2 to +4 degrees;
- air humidity 90%.
In the absence of a cellar, at home vegetables are kept in the refrigerator. To maintain the high humidity required by the vegetable, it is packaged in a plastic bag.
If the apartment has an insulated balcony or a cold storage room, vegetables can be stored there. Root vegetables are poured into cardboard or wooden boxes, in a layer of no more than 30 cm. Vegetables are protected from the cold in winter with blankets.
If the room is very dry, the beets can be placed in buckets or boxes, sprinkled with moistened sand. For these purposes, it is recommended to take clean coarse river sand. The root crops are laid out on a layer of sand, 3-4 cm thick, so that they do not come into contact with each other. Periodically, the sand is sprinkled with water on top, maintaining high humidity.
Perlite or foam chips can be a good alternative to sand. These fillers are lightweight, non-toxic, and can be used repeatedly. Beets are perfectly stored in one compartment, mixed with potatoes, absorbing excess moisture released by them.
In the peel
Raw beets in their peels are poured into thick plastic bags, 1-2 kg each. The bags are not filled to the top, but only two-thirds., leaving free space filled with air.
The bag is tightly tied and placed on the refrigerator shelf, where the temperature does not rise above +4 degrees. Individual specimens can be wrapped in cling film in 2-3 layers.
Purified
It is convenient to use beets freed from the skin for further cooking. Housewives practice storing such “semi-finished product” in a regular bag or in a vacuum. For the latter method, you need to purchase a vacuum degasser - a special device that pumps out air from a thick bag of vegetables. Without access to air, the proliferation of putrefactive bacteria is stopped, and the product stays fresh longer.
Boiled
Boiled beets, placed in an enamel or glass, tightly closed container, will last no more than 4 days in the refrigerator. The shelf life of a vacuum-packed product is doubled.
Fresh juice
Beetroot juice is rich in vitamins and has a beneficial effect on the digestive system., rids the body of toxins.
Only a freshly squeezed drink has maximum benefits; with each hour of storage, vitamins disappear from the liquid.
For short-term storage, the juice is filtered (the sediment and foam from the surface are discarded) and poured into a sterile glass jar (bottle) with a tight lid. Adding the juice of a lemon slice to it (1 slice per 0.5 liter of liquid) will help reduce the risk of spoilage of the drink.
I'll rub it
Grated beets are best stored in a vacuum in the refrigerator or frozen. Folded into a regular bag or bowl, it quickly oxidizes in air, losing vitamins and juice.
Expiration dates
The shelf life of vegetables depends on the storage method:
- raw beets in their peels, placed in a plastic bag, will last in the refrigerator for 2-3 months;
- does not wither in a thermal box on the balcony for up to 7 months;
- peeled raw in a simple bag will keep fresh for 5-8 days;
- juice in a glass container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days;
- in wet sand up to 4 months;
- Boiled beets can be stored in vacuum packaging for 10-15 days.
Can it be frozen?
Housewives usually freeze beets in portions, already in the form of a semi-finished product: boiled, peeled, grated. The product is placed in a tight bag, tied, after expelling the air. Storage is carried out at a temperature of -18 degrees for 5-6 months. At this temperature, all the vitamins in beets are preserved.
Thaw beets to add to salads or extract juice at room temperature. There is no need to defrost the vegetable for further heat treatment.
Pros of freezing table beets:
- Frozen semi-finished product significantly speeds up the preparation of complex dishes (borscht, stew, vinaigrettes).
- When frozen, all vitamins are fully preserved in the product.
- Long storage period.
The disadvantage is the limited volume of household freezers, which does not allow storing vegetables in the required volume.
This video will show you how to freeze beets:
How to increase the shelf life of a product?
Keeping table beets raw in the refrigerator, It is necessary to sort out the planted root crops once a month. If a lot of condensation collects in the bags, dry the vegetables with paper towels, and make several holes in the package with a needle to release carbon dioxide.
They preserve the juiciness of small, unpeeled beets by immersing them in paraffin. To do this, melt medical paraffin in a water bath. The root crop is immersed in the liquid mass, holding it by the tail. Place the vegetables on a wire rack or flat plate to cool.
Adviсe
If the beets lying in the refrigerator begin to wither, you can revive it for a while by wrapping it in a damp cloth, but it is better to use it as food as soon as possible.
Small wounds on the skin formed during storage are sprinkled with dry ash or chalk.
For city residents who want to store fresh vegetables for the winter, the industry produces “balcony cellars.” These are small boxes or bags equipped with a ventilation and automated heating system, powered by electricity. The conditions created by the “balcony cellar” fully meet the requirements of beets for long-term storage.
The old and reliable method of storing vegetables is again at the peak of popularity - drying. During proper drying, moisture is removed from the product while maintaining maximum vitamins and other beneficial substances. Dried beets shrink many times in volume and can be stored in a dry and dark place for up to 4 months. The product can be used to prepare borscht, stew and other dishes.
Beetroot and other root vegetables can be used to make healthy and tasty vegetable chips. Thinly sliced slabs of raw beets are sprinkled with vegetable oil mixed with spices and dried until brittle in an oven at 140 degrees or in an electric dehydrator (dryer). Store the finished chips in a paper bag or a dry, tightly closed jar in a cupboard for up to 4 weeks.
To preserve the bright color of boiled beets during storage, vinegar is poured into the water during boiling (1 teaspoon per liter of liquid).
Conclusion
Homemade beets it is better to store in a cold pantry, along with potatoes, or sprinkled with sand. The second place in terms of duration and ease of storage is the freezer; the best container is vacuum bags. Root vegetables that have begun to spoil are crushed and frozen or dried.
